Page 64 of Our Secrets and Scars

Kinsley

“So,whydidyouchange your name?” Holden asks as we lie together, bathing in the light of our afterglow.

My head rests on his chest, my index finger drawing tiny swirls and love hearts over his skin. I can hear the rhythmic beating of his heart beneath me, slowing as his breathing begins to even out. It brings me the kind of peace that comes to me whenever I think of Greece. Here in Salt Lake City, surrounded by steep crags and snow-tipped mountains, Holden is the closest thing I have to Athens.

“Violet’s my middle name,” I tell him. “I dunno, maybe it’s stupid, but I just wanted a fresh start after all the shit in high school with Shane and stuff.”

His fingers twist absentmindedly in my hair, nails scraping soothingly across my scalp.

“I get that. Changing your name… it’s kind of like becoming a different person.” He pauses, thinking. “That’s why I didn’t want you to call me Fletcher. ’Cause I don’t want to be that guy anymore. I want to be the man who’s good enough for you, not the boy with a record who got caught up in some bad shit, y’know? So, yeah, I understand, little one. I get it.”

“I knew you would,” I whisper, smiling.

We fall into silence, our synchronized breaths the only sound in the room. It’s comfortable. It’ssafe.

All my life, I’ve tried tirelessly to be better than who I am. To be like my sister or the perfectly filtered girls I follow on social media. But in all my letters to Fletcher and all of my interactions with Holden, never have I felt the need to be anyone other than myself.

And I’m not entirely sure I understand why.

But there was an acceptance from the beginning that came from both of us. His incarceration never bothered me. Perhaps that makes me naïve. In fact, it probably does. But not once did I pass judgment on him, and he extended me the same courtesy. We’ve always given each other the freedom to justbe.

“Can I ask you something?” I whisper, tilting my head to look at him.

“Mm?”

I gnaw my lip between my teeth, nervous all of a sudden. It’s just that the question I’m about to ask is incredibly personal, maybe even intrusive, and I don’t know how he’ll respond.

“How come you’re so good at…” I trail off, the words dying in my throat, “all the sex stuff if you’ve never been with a woman before?”

His fingers tense, and I know I’ve hit a nerve. But I stay quiet, hoping he trusts me enough to answer.

“I told you about the girlfriend I had before I went to jail in one of my letters, right?” he says finally, and I nod, trying and failing to squeeze down the jealousy that swells at the mention of his ex. “We did a bit of stuff together, not a lot, and I was only sixteen, so I can’t imagine I was actually any good at it.”

I listen with rapt attention. He hasn’t told me anything I don’t know yet, but I get the sense that he’s stalling. That whatever it is he’s going to tell me is hard for him to say. So, I wait, continuing to draw little shapes on his chest with my fingers until he’s ready to carry on.

“When I was transferred from juvie to federal prison, there was this guard. A woman. She took a liking to me, or maybe she just saw me as someone she could exercise power over easily, I’m not sure. I wasn’t a big guy back then, y’know? And I was quiet, a little shy. I kept out of the way most of the time, made me an easy target, I guess.”

My heart stops.

For several long moments, it doesn’t beat at all.

Because I think I know where this is going, and it’s tearing me apart.

“She, um, well, she was the one who would deliver the letters.”

“Our letters?” I stammer.

He purses his lips, clenching his eyelids shut, as if the answer pains him. “Yeah.”

“Oh God.” Nausea stirs in my stomach, acid burning my throat.

“She’d make me do things to her before I could have them. She threatened to burn them if I refused and I couldn’t let her do that. So…”

“So you did it,” I finish for him, tears stinging my eyes at his revelation of what he had to go through just to read my letters. They spill over, rolling one after another down my cheeks to splash on his chest.

“It’s okay, little one. It never went any further than that. But I knew that it might, if I didn’t satisfy her enough with what we were already doing. And I didn’t want to lose my virginity that way, y’know? So, I got good at it.”

I bury my face in the crook of his arm as I weep for him, his hands stroking my hair, my back, my face, any part of me they can touch. He whispers soothing words and lays kiss after kiss on the top of my head. It only makes me feel worse. It only makes me cry harder. Because here he is telling me something so damn hard for him to talk about, and he has to comfortme.

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